The healthcare market in Europe is valued at more than USD 2 trillion and is projected to increase due to the aging population not just in the EU but also in other countries globally. Healthcare costs vary widely and have led to the growth of medical tourism. There is also significant variation in healthcare standards and expenses within the EU. Although factors such as the number of skilled practitioners and wages contribute to the high cost of healthcare, some inefficiencies can be addressed and eliminated to reduce expenses.
This is where the EU’s digital healthcare initiative or eHealth comes into the picture. eHealth aims to empower EU citizens and gives them better control over their medical data and records.
The primary thrust of the initiative can be summarized under three key points:
1. Providing citizens a secure way to access their medical and healthcare related data across borders
The eHealth initiative will revolutionize the way medical data is recorded and shared. Citizens should be able to access their data seamlessly from all EU countries. Any delays in accessing medical records in an emergency would be unacceptable and also add to the overall cost of healthcare delivery. The tools provided by the eIDAS Regulation are also critical here. Medical records must be matched to individual citizens and must remain secure from tampering or misuse.
2. A shared European infrastructure for sharing health data
Research and Development accounts for a good chunk of the expenditure of many pharmaceutical firms and medical institutes. This R&D is critical to advancing the discipline and hence efforts should be made to maximize efficiency as much as possible. By sharing resources like data, expertise, storage, computing power and remotely using certain hardware, researchers can save a lot on redundant costs. Creating this framework for a pan European medical data sharing infrastructure for research is one of the main aims of the eHealth initiative. eIDAS again has a critical role to play here to protect this data from misuse by providing state of the art authentication and trust services.
3. Empowering citizens with digital tools for user feedback and creating an eco-system of person-centric care
In order to improve the quality of healthcare received by the citizens, it is necessary to create a feedback mechanism. An ideal feedback loop takes input from the end users on a continuous basis and then translates it into actionable points for the healthcare service providers. Empowering citizens with these tools is another main focus of the eHealth initiative. However, in order to protect such a system from abuse, it is necessary to ensure that the right people are providing feedback for the services they received. The authentication infrastructure enabled by eIDAS guarantees exactly this.
Conclusion
Good healthcare service is one of the most important requirements of modern life. In an age when most services have already gone digital, it is time for the healthcare industry to do the same. Initiatives like eHealth, supported by eIDAS enabled tools, ensure that medical records, research tools and personalised medicine is available to citizens and healthcare providers across the EU.
References and Further Reading
- REGULATION (EU) No 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC (2014) by the European Parliament and the European Commission
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Transformation of Health and Care in the Digital Single Market (2014, updated 4/2018) by the European Commission
- Selected articles eIDAS (2014-today), by Gaurav Sharma, Guillaume Forget, Stefan Hansen, Michal Tabor , Peter Landrock, Torben Pedersen, Dawn M. Turner, and more
- Selected articles on Electronic Signing and Digital Signatures (2014-today), by Gaurav Sharma, Guillaume Forget, Jan Kjaersgaard , Peter Landrock, Torben Pedersen, Dawn M. Turner and more
- Communication 'Digital Transformation of Health and Care in the Digital Single Market' (4/2018), by the European Commission
- Staff Working Document 'Digital transformation of health and care in the Digital Single Market (4/2018), by the European Commission
- Blog post Vice-President of the European Commission Andrus Ansip (Digital Single Market): 'Making digital technology work for healthy living'
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INCEPTION IMPACT ASSESSMENT European Social Security Number (11/2017), by the European Commission
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Directive 2009/102/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 September 2009 in the area of company law on single-member private limited liability companies (2009), by the European Parliament and the European Council
- REGULATION (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) (2016), by the European Parliament and the European Council
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Proposal for a REGULATION concerning the respect for private life and the protection of personal data in electronic communications and repealing Directive 2002/58/EC (Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications), (2017), by the European Parliament and the European Council
Image: A Message, courtesy of Naama Ym, Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)